The 7 best phrases by Anaïs Nin

The most characteristic thing about Anaïs Nin’s phrases is the freshness and honesty with which they were created. Some of his statements come out of his Diaries, which in total comprise a volume of 35,000 pages. She started writing them at age 11 and never stopped.

In addition, other A good part of Anaïs Nin’s phrases that have given her the most fame come from the correspondence she exchanged with Henry Miller, from when she was 27 years old until her death. The two became one of the most emblematic couples in the literary world.

This writer, born in France, but naturalized in the United States, was scandalous to many. She was the first woman to publish erotic stories In America. His direct and uninhibited style caused a lot of sting in his time.. However, the most notable thing about his work is not the erotic, but his reflection on the human. Without further ado, these are some of the most remembered Anaïs Nin phrases.

1. Courage is the measure

One of the most beautiful and exultant phrases by Anaïs Nin says the following: “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to courage one’s”. The most interesting thing about the statement is that it mentions courage as the great determinant of the degree of life coverage, so to speak.

You are absolutely right. The fear It has the particularity of confining us to narrow margins, either of ideas or of spaces and experiences.. Courage, on the other hand, is the force that leads us to cross borders and expand our reality.

2. Things as they are

This is one of Anaïs Nin’s phrases in which she reaffirms that subjectivist tradition of which she was a part. She points out: “We can not see things as they are, we see them as we are”. In other words, reality is a personal construction.

Each human being “filters” reality, based on their desires fears, personal history, etc. For this reason, what one person defines as “real” is not exactly equivalent to what another person defines as such. Subjectivity determines how each person sees things.

3. One of Anaïs Nin’s phrases about love

Many of Anaïs Nin’s phrases are dedicated to love. This, for example, says: “You can’t save people. You can only love them”. It shows us a realistic perspective, as opposed to a romantic point of view on love.

In romanticism, love is the answer and salvation. Actually, Everyone must deal with their destiny, which is the result of internal and external factors.. Nothing and no one changes this. True love simply loves.

4. The world that each person builds

Many people go through life believing that it is others or the world that must change. to make reality more tolerable. However, the one who finally makes it assimilate and digest is ourselves.

That is what is captured in this phrase: “When you make the world tolerable for yourself, you make the world tolerable for others.”. The task is to build a tolerable world for ourselves. That is more than enough to improve the world of others.

5. Natural death in love

This is another of Anaïs Nin’s beautiful phrases about love: “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source”. The most interesting thing about the statement is the reference to the source.

Love is not born from nothing, but there are factors or reasons that combine to make it emerge. In that origin of love is also its essence. So If we want it not to die, the goal is to return to its essentials, over and over again.

6. What is shame?

Anaïs Nin says that: “Shame is the lie that someone told you about yourself”. It is a very sharp and profound observation that unravels the hidden plot of shame. First he defines it as a lie and then as something that comes from others, not from oneself.

There is shame, because simultaneously there is a look from another that points. It is this pointing out that leads us to feel that what is ours is not worthy, or that it should be hidden. That’s where shame comes from: the credit we give to what someone partially sees about us.

7. Fear of death

Death is a recurring theme in literature. Anaïs Nin also reflected on it and its implications. From there comes this simple, but forceful statement: “People who live deeply are not afraid of death”.

The fear of death is largely born from that confrontation with the possibility of not being. To dilute ourselves into nothingness. That fear is greater when the pulse of life has not been thoroughly explored. It is something like the fear of never being able to be, what one has not been able to be.

These phrases by Anaïs Nin are just a small sample of the interesting work of this writer, who challenged taboos and prejudices. He had the courage to live according to his own criteria and making love a universal feeling and very human, who has no barriers.

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